Worries aired over locum support deal ending

The Rural Doctors Association is concerned that Country Health SA is on the verge of ending longstanding support arrangements for some country GPs.

There is no agreement to continue ongoing locum support for doctors on Kangaroo Island, with current arrangements to expire at the end of March.

The island's doctors say that means they will have to fund the locum service themselves or work dangerously long hours but Country Health SA says standards of care would not be compromised.

The state president of the Rural Doctors Association, Scott Lewis, fears it is a cost-saving move at the expense of local doctors.

"It's always a concern to see arrangements that have been longstanding being rolled back and obviously attempts being made to put the costs of those ongoing arrangements back onto the local doctors," he said.

He says anaesthetic and obstetric services could be at risk without such an agreement.

"Particularly in the case of obstetrics, for somewhere with the isolation that Kangaroo Island has, it means that expectant mothers are going to be required to move offshore or to the mainland, a couple of weeks before [they are] due to deliver," he said.

"So this is going to be moving an undue expense onto the patients themselves."